The simple pleasure of rolling a character

[RKFM]

It's amazing the fun you can have just rolling a character. It becomes an enjoyable evening pursuit while your other half is visiting her sister. The other night I decided to pick a world in the Marches and roll up a character and at the same time take notes and expand on the assignments and service history as I went along.

I'm not a big fan of MT but I like the expanded character generation because of the brownie point system and how the cascade skill system allows a little more choice in skill pursuits. So, I used that as my char gen system.

I chose a Rich, Ag world in the Mora Subsector: Byret. Looking at the UWP I envisioned a semi-collectivist govt that keeps the peasant/farmer population at bay, though not too oppressive. I rolled 3 sets of 6 characteristics. I had to choose one set, but I could assign the characteristics as I wish. Final choice: 886A96.

I saw a young, smart farmer that was able to enter the Party schools perhaps because his family bribed a local bureaucrat. He applied for college but was blackballed because of his Soc standing. Shooting the moon he applied to the Imperial Naval College. He was accepted! He succeeded, but not with honors. Again his Soc standing and early industrial provincialism made it hard for him at the academy. But his Intel saw him through it.

With flight school out, he joined the Imperial Navy as an Ensign. After initial training, he was assigned to...Flight school! Already, coming from his humble beginnings as an early industrial farmer to an Imperial fighter jock, the future looked bright.

To make a long story short, he served 5 terms in the Imperial Navy rising to the rank of Fleet Admiral. Serving many strike missions, Intel School, and Cmd School here is his final stats:

Navy Fleet Admiral 777ABA 5 Terms + Naval Academy Cr90,000
Ship Tactics-3, Pilot-2, Ships Boat-2, History-2 Travellers
Leader-2, Fleet Tactics-1, Vacc-1, Liaison-1 3xHigh Psgs
Handgun-1, Forgery-1, Streetwise-1

He acquired his less savory skills at Intel School and his tactical abilities during strike missions and Command School. He received 3 MCUFs and an MCG. Now he is a retired Fleet Commander, skilled tactician, natural leader and has published a book on the Imperial Civil War.

It was fun to build situations around his assignments, promotions, and skill selections. Not only was I rolling a character, I was building a story.

Goes to show, just rolling a character can be a pleasurable evening. Perhaps, even a great role-playing session.

 

[dean]

Excellent synopsis on how the various parts of Traveller have become pastimes in and of themselves.

Whether you build characters, ships, or worlds, it offers near infinite variety and possibility.

That's what makes it my RP system of choice.

 

[Supplement Four]

5 terms?

Didn't use the hard survival rule, eh?

 

[Whipsnade]

RKFM,

Great post, thank you!

I used to roll up characters and create their back stories during business trips. Nothing makes a long plane fight go by faster than fitting a character to a back story.

The various tables in MgT may make the process faster and/or easier, but they also make it formulaic. The story you produce can only include those events already written into the tables.

I'd rather use my imagination.


Regards,
Bill

 

[saundby]

RKFM,

Great post, thank you!

I used to roll up characters and create their back stories during business trips. Nothing makes a long plane fight go by faster than fitting a character to a back story.

The various tables in MgT may make the process faster and/or easier, but they also make it formulaic. The story you produce can only include those events already written into the tables.

I'd rather use my imagination.


Regards,
Bill

I don't play the MGT chargen that formulaic. My players have added plenty of their own to the MGT chargen. For myself, I didn't see a need for the extra background. I still use CT chargen for NPCs. But some of my players have an easier time getting into a char with the MGT extras. It gets them at about the point it'd take them 2-4 sessions to get, before. Those who were good with CT still do as well with MGT.

Not wanting to start a fight, just passing on my experiences in response to your comment. For some folks the extras help, and in a well-managed game they hurt nobody.

Chargen's a lot of fun. It's always interesting to build backgrounds, I particularly enjoy it when I have a goal in mind for the character as part of a story. Like, for instance, Conn Maxwell from Piper's Cosmic Computer. Has a goal in mind (finding out where the super-duper-computer Merlin is on his home planet, and learning enough to operate it and train assistants), how do you roll with the rolls? What if he'd failed a critical roll, how do you recover?

How would the book's story change? If Conn failed at school and got into industrial espionage, say, to make a living and seek data on Merlin? What would happen when a very different Conn returned to Poictesme (perhaps as a rogue on a pirate ship rather than as a normal passenger on a liner.)

Great post, RKFM!

 

[Whipsnade]

For some folks the extras help...

Saundby,

And for some folks the extras were never needed.

Of course, those extras are now not optional, are they? The background table is part of MgT's chargen, isn't it?

... and in a well-managed game they hurt nobody.

Agreed. Try this though. The next game you run as a GM, tell your players they can't use the background tables and, if they want a background, they must create one on their own. How much squealing might you think will occur?

Chargen's a lot of fun. It's always interesting to build backgrounds, I particularly enjoy it when I have a goal in mind for the character as part of a story.

That's opposite of my thinking as a GM. I never built player-characters with a goal in mind and never told my players to think of "goals" either. NPCs naturally had pre-assigned goals because they're "tools". I never reduced PCs to the level of "tools" used to reach a goal; Hmmm... they'll need a Dryone linguist to decipher the jump tapes, so I'll make sure this PC has that skill despite that fact he'll use it once.

My campaigns did have goals and the players would strive to achieve them, but they never built a PC with a goal in mind. That's because my pre-game instructions to them never mentioned a goal, identifying a goal was something they and I would do together in the early stages of the campaign.

Like, for instance, Conn Maxwell from Piper's Cosmic Computer. Has a goal in mind (finding out where the super-duper-computer Merlin is on his home planet, and learning enough to operate it and train assistants), how do you roll with the rolls? What if he'd failed a critical roll, how do you recover?

Finding Merlin isn't Conn's goal, remember? He believes the computer doesn't exist and has Foxx Travis' word that it doesn't exist. Conn's goal is reversing Poictesme's slide from genteel poverty to "Third World planet" status. He and his father, Rodney, use the belief in the computer's existence to "trick" the others into investing, repairing infrastructure, building new ships, restarting interstellar trade, etc., etc. When Merlin is found and used, it essentially rubber stamps the plans Conn and Rodney father already had begun.

Answering your question now, if I was running a "Cosmic Computer" campaign Conn wouldn't be a PC because he's too central to the events. Putting a player into that role means the player is going to be heavily railroaded throughout the campaign as there are things Conn absolutely has to do. As a NPC, I wouldn't role Conn up either. He'd be "hand built" instead. I already know his age, background, and education so I'd simply assign the stats and skills he needs.

There's no chance of Conn changing because of a "failed" chargen because he wouldn't be a player-character at all.

How would the book's story change?

The story would initially change around the edges because that's where my player-characters would be operating. Merlin may be found sooner or later, Shanlee will be uncovered sooner or not at all, his bomb plot will work or not, all of it depending on the players' actions. As their actions impinged on the book's events, those events would change in response. I would never set the campaign up with idea that the events of the book would occur automatically and I would never railroad the action to ensure those events occur automatically.

If Conn failed at school and got into industrial espionage, say, to make a living and seek data on Merlin? What would happen when a very different Conn returned to Poictesme (perhaps as a rogue on a pirate ship rather than as a normal passenger on a liner.)

All those question are moot IMHO. I simply didn't and wouldn't plot a campaign to that level of detail. Saying the campaign must have player-character Conn, he must have graduated from cybernetics school, he must have already done X, Y, Z, and all that must be reflected in chargen is nothing more than railroading. Your simply railroading the campaign before the campaign even begins.

Now if I did run a "Cosmic Computer" campaign and one of the players rolled up an alt-Conn like you mentioned above, it would be easy to tweak the campaign so that the alt-Conn became involved in the Merlin hunt just as much as the real Conn did. However, as I wrote above, I wouldn't let Conn be a PC.


Regards,
Bill

 

[Icosahedron]

Of course, those extras are now not optional, are they? The background table is part of MgT's chargen, isn't it?


The next game you run as a GM, tell your players they can't use the background tables and, if they want a background, they must create one on their own. How much squealing might you think will occur?

IMHO all game rules are optional. I've never really understood the idea that 'it says so in the rules, so we must do that even if it ruins our game'.
If it works for you, use it; if it doesn't, ignore or change it.

Try telling your players they can use the tables if they want to, if it helps them to define a character, but they don't have to if they want a background that isn't included in the tables. I don't think there would be much squealing.

 

[rancke]

I never built player-characters with a goal in mind and never told my players to think of "goals" either. NPCs naturally had pre-assigned goals because they're "tools". I never reduced PCs to the level of "tools" used to reach a goal; Hmmm... they'll need a Dryone linguist to decipher the jump tapes, so I'll make sure this PC has that skill despite that fact he'll use it once.

My highly successful naval campaign set in the Five Sisters subsector had my players constrained to rolling up Navy characters with highly specific ranks and suited for particular positions (i.e. with the necessary skills to fill the position (or, of course, a high social level )). For my "the players are troubleshooters working for Oberlindes" GT campaign, I told my players to design characters that the Oberlindes security chief would hire. For my Buffy the Vampire Slayer campaign, the PCs had to be people the mysterious owner of the Odd Jobs Detective Agency would hire, although since the entire previous staff had recently disappeared mysteriously, he'd had to scrape the bottom of the barrel, so they needn't be quite as competent as you expect from a demon-investigation agency (And a good thing too, since they were beginner chars).

Contrariwise, in that long-ago CT campaign where our ref ran things By The Book, we were four randomly generated characters with a free trader. No back story on how we got that ship, and while a couple of us were qualified to fill a couple of the crew positions, by no stretch of the imagination could we be considered a complete crew. So our ref provided us with NPCs to fill the missing spots and made the two lubbers supernumeraries who were just along for the ride. Said NPCs didn't even come with names attached, and they had just enough personality to help run the ship, but under no circumstances were they able to help with any extra-curricular activity (since that would be cheating).

Believe me, custom-fitting player characters to fit into a specific setting is not always a Bad Thing.


Hans

 

[Psion]

The various tables in MgT may make the process faster and/or easier, but they also make it formulaic. The story you produce can only include those events already written into the tables.

IME, the possibilities of the MgT events are closer to the 75%(+) percentile mark of what I'd see out of players adding the missing details for CT/MT chargen. Some players would weave in that much info; most wouldn't.

I do think the 2d6 tables are a bit brief, but the D66 tables seem more than sufficient to me, and many events in these tables have plenty of room for embellishment. Indeed, when players start using the connection rules, you can see them adding and inventing new angles to the event-as-written. The rules do a good job of encouraging player creativity.

Again IME/YMMV/etc.

 

[Whipsnade]

My highly successful naval campaigns...

Hans,

Fitting a PC to a campaign is not the same as using a PC as a "tool". As a "tool", a non-player-character's stats, skills, and survival or death are predetermined and strictly controlled by the GM. A player-character, on the other hand, will have some, not all, of their stats and skills suited for the campaign and their survival will depend on the their player's actions alone.

It's a matter of degree, not kind.

In the Active Duty IISS campaign I ran, I rolled up a stack of PCs that fit the campaign. Among other commonalities, they were all in the IISS and were all between certain ages. Because they players were going to man a scout/courier, the skills the PCs had were also somewhat preset. The group needed a pilot, navigator, engineer, gunner, medic, and so forth. After the necessary skills were in place, the rest depended on the the role of the dice.

In Saundby's "Cosmic Computer" example, Conn Maxwell is so crucial to the plot that he cannot be a PC. His stats, skills, and very existence cannot risked if the campaign is to succeed. Conn must have computer skills, Conn must be smart enough to solve several mysteries, and Conn must not die prior to Merlin being found and programmed.

Because of that Conn can only be a NPC, a tool. He cannot be a PC whose skills, background, and even survival needs to be actively and regularly controlled by the GM. As Saundby pointed out, something as simple as failing a college roll would result in a very different Conn whose arrival on Poictesme to search for Merlin would require major changes to the campaign.

There were similar characters in my Active Duty IISS and Fixers campaigns. They were NPCs because they were "tools". Their specific skills and stats, along with their existence, were needed for the adventure at hand and thus were strictly controlled by me the GM. After they completed their roles as "tools", these NPCs were then withdrawn from the game.


Regards,
Bill

 

[far-trader]

5 terms?

Didn't use the hard survival rule, eh?

In Book2 the IN isn't that hard to survive I've had a couple go to retirement. Never made Admiral in 5 terms though, never made it higher than Commander as I recall.

But RKFM was using MT expanded chargen and iirc that was both easier to survive and quicker to promote. Especially with calculated usage of Brownie Points and Poltroonery

 

[rancke]

Fitting a PC to a campaign is not the same as using a PC as a "tool".

No, but it is builing a player-character with a goal in mind. Which you said you never do.

I guess building a PC with a goal in mind isn't always the same thing as using him for a "tool", after all.

It's a matter of degree, not kind.

If you never do it, then it is a matter of kind. But as it turns out that you actually do do it in some cases, after all, I agree with you 100% that it's a matter of degree, not kind.


Hans

 

[Whipsnade]

Hans,

I see a great difference between the concepts of "fitting" a character to a campaign and "building" a character to a campaign.

My choice of terms to describe each of those concepts is undoubtedly poor, hence the confusion. However, I believe I've a simple example that will illustrate the differences I perceive between "fitting" and "building". That example is:

Character death.

Using Saundby's excellent "Cosmic Computer" setting example, the character of Conn Maxwell is vitally important. He cannot die if the campaign is to be resolved. If the Conn Maxwell character does die, the GM either needs to abandon the campaign's goal or introduce another character who is Conn Maxwell in all but name.

In my mind, the character of Conn Maxwell is "built" for the "Cosmic Computer" campaign. That character or another completely like it must exist for the campaign to succeed.

In my years as a GM I never had a player-character whose survival was vital to the successful conclusion of a campaign. I would never allow such a dependency to occur.

Instead, I allowed player-characters who "fitted" the campaign. They had some skills and other attributes that would be helpful in the campaign but their survival was not a prerequisite for the campaign's success.

That is the difference between "building" and "fitting" in my jumbled little mind.


Regards,
Bill

 

[Matt123]

That character or another completely like it must exist for the campaign to succeed.

Ran a D&D Dragonlance campaign years ago which suffered from this. The players all had characters from the books. My old mates still take the piss out of me on occasion for the number of last minute saves I had to come up with...

Still enjoyed the campaign tho.

 

[far-trader]

The idea of fitting an RPG campaign to a story, complete with major players and required actions, reminded me of (I'm sure I've shared the link, though maybe not here being it's not Traveller) a great online comic. It entertains and shows some of the problems noted

It's EPIC, you're warned...

Twenty Sided Tale - DM of the Rings

(well worth the read on several levels imo)

 

[Whipsnade]

Dan,

Thank you so much for that link and it is epic! Wow!

Found these few bon mots within the first twenty pages or so:


If you send along a high-level NPC of great majesty and power to accompany the party, you need to realize that the players will treat this character like a bazooka: The NPC will become a weapon used to solve a problem in the bloodiest and most expedient manner possible, and then discarded without ceremony.

No matter how difficult or absurd you make a puzzle, your players will find an even more impossible and preposterous way of solving it.

This happens all the time. No matter how epic the battle, once begun, the thing sounds more or less like a bingo game: People shout out numbers and other people get excited about them.

Any seasoned roleplayer knows they are not limited by the rulebooks. Anything is possible as long as they can justify it to the DM.

The comment about using horses like motorcycles made me laugh aloud.


Regards,
Bill

 

[Hal]

Sort of on topic, yet sort of a sideways lateral spin...

Has anyone every used the character generation process to determine what the general history of a region has to be?

For example, lets take a character who will be serving in the Imperial Navy. He joins the navy from a given world - and the navy is the Imperial Navy. Lets say that the world is two jumps away from a naval base.

Where does the character go for his Basic Training?

When the character rolls up a strike mission - which world was the strike against, and why?

If there was a pitched naval battle, and the time period is such that it can't be the Zhodani fleet that is being battled against - what fleet was the battle against?

As you can see, building a character history without it directly impacting on the regional history is like saying "There was once this huge battle taking place that destroyed the economy of many many many MANY worlds, but all the nearby worlds are pristine and have never felt the lash of war, nor even worried about it. Somehow, there is this disconnect so to speak.

As for myself?

I've noted that in many instances, the re-enlistment rolls often fail despite the person's intent to keep on with the character generation. This represents the Navy saying "thanks for the interest, but we've met our re-enlistment quota, and we need young'uns to fight, not some 22 year old wanna be fleet admiral"

So, here is a challenge:

II challenge those present in here, to create a character, and keep track of his experiences. Backtrack the time such that when the character finally exits the service, it is now, say, 1107. Then determine when and where each of those missions had to have taken place, and why. If there was a battle mission and the ship the character was deployed upon was a Tin can (DD), then what was the action? If someone gets an MCUF - what precisely was that action that was so meritous? Imagine a player being stuck for ideas on why he received that medal, when as GM you might say "Well, since you can't come up with anything, perhaps you got that medal mistakenly - and it should have gone to the guy who died next to you."

Its little things like that which in the long run help players to ask themselves "What happened, and why" when they build up a background story for their characters.

Just out of curiosity? What would happen, if the GM were to roll up the mission profiles for the commanding officers of ships themselves, built up a history - and instead of having the player characters randomly roll up their histories outright per High Guard character generation rules, the GM informs his players what the actual history of the ship is, and they then have to determine what their survival rolls will be, and what the end results shall be relative to the ship's history.

Just a thought.

 

[saundby]

Saundby,

And for some folks the extras were never needed.

Of course, those extras are now not optional, are they? The background table is part of MgT's chargen, isn't it?

They're just as optional as any other rule. In my game that means I use them if they add to the game. RPGs ain't Scrabble, Bridge, or Poker. All rulesets are a toolbox, IMO.

Agreed. Try this though. The next game you run as a GM, tell your players they can't use the background tables and, if they want a background, they must create one on their own. How much squealing might you think will occur?

None. Even my teen players won't squeal. They all played along with me when I announced I was dropping D&D3 and going back to OD&D. They rolled 3d6 and took their bad stats right where they rolled them. We had a blast with that campaign.

We played CT using LBBs1-3 and nothing else but my own rules for ships and drives. We had a great time.

We were starting a new CT campaign when MGT playtest was announced. They didn't squeal when I suggested giving it a spin.

My players come to my table because they know I'll give them a good game. About half of them are casual gamers or do no other gaming. The others are gamers of various ages and backgrounds. If I suggest something they usually assume it's for more fun, and I work to deliver that and not yank their chain. They reward me by not squealing, snivelling, throwing tantrums, or getting in my face. Though they're perfectly willing to let me know their preferences, then play the way i call it.

That's opposite of my thinking as a GM. I never built player-characters with a goal in mind and never told my players to think of "goals" either. NPCs naturally had pre-assigned goals because they're "tools". I never reduced PCs to the level of "tools" used to reach a goal; Hmmm... they'll need a Dryone linguist to decipher the jump tapes, so I'll make sure this PC has that skill despite that fact he'll use it once.
...

Regards,
Bill

Sorry if I didn't make myself clear. I was referring to building an NPC, using Conn and The Cosmic Computer as an example that came readily to mind. I build NPCs for fun. A useful hobby for a ref.

And with respect to Conn's views on Merlin, at the start of chargen when he was sent off to Terra I'd think he accepted at least the possibility of Merlin at that point. When he came back is a different story, but he was at the other end of chargen by that point.

Oh, and on character death, just as there are no indispensable people, IMTU there are no indispensable characters. Sometimes the story changes. I usually have several threads set up with different possibilities, and I manage to roll with the punches pretty well. If all else fails, I can call for a pizza break then listen in as my players do my thinking for me.

 

[Whipsnade]

Sorry if I didn't make myself clear. I was referring to building an NPC, using Conn and The Cosmic Computer as an example that came readily to mind. I build NPCs for fun. A useful hobby for a ref.

Saundby,

As you can tell from reading the thread, I too failed to make myself clear. Like you and for the same reasons, I "build" NPCs and "fit" PCs.

I was constantly stockpiling adventure seeds, NPCs, and other oddities as a GM too. A few months ago I unearthed a personal "slush pile" from nearly twenty years back. Reading through it has been like examining a time capsule.

And with respect to Conn's views on Merlin, at the start of chargen when he was sent off to Terra I'd think he accepted at least the possibility of Merlin at that point. When he came back is a different story, but he was at the other end of chargen by that point.

Exactly. The Conn we see in Cosmic Computer is the Conn at the end of chargen.

Oh, and on character death, just as there are no indispensable people, IMTU there are no indispensable characters. Sometimes the story changes. I usually have several threads set up with different possibilities, and I manage to roll with the punches pretty well. If all else fails, I can call for a pizza break then listen in as my players do my thinking for me.

Agreed. I was able to "lure", "loop", or "substitute" enough during a campaign to (usually) avoid any cries of railroading. I also wasn't sentimental in the least. PCs died and important NPCs died, it was just easier to replace the NPCs.

One player-derived goal during my Active IISS campaign involved being knighted. The scout/courier commander character of the player in question had a high SOC and he thought playing the campaign as a "tuft hunter" would be fun. It was and, oddly enough, he became as desperate as his character as the campaign progressed. I had recycled the "Death Station" adventure and the player "solved" the adventure by venting the lab ship to space after taking a few casualties.

Sadly, among the lab ship survivors blown into space was a close relative of an imperial noble who could have helped the tuft hunter. Ooops...


Regards,
Bill

 

[Jeffr0]

As you can see, building a character history without it directly impacting on the regional history is like saying "There was once this huge battle taking place that destroyed the economy of many many many MANY worlds, but all the nearby worlds are pristine and have never felt the lash of war, nor even worried about it. Somehow, there is this disconnect so to speak.

As for myself?

I've noted that in many instances, the re-enlistment rolls often fail despite the person's intent to keep on with the character generation. This represents the Navy saying "thanks for the interest, but we've met our re-enlistment quota, and we need young'uns to fight, not some 22 year old wanna be fleet admiral"

So, here is a challenge:

II challenge those present in here, to create a character, and keep track of his experiences. Backtrack the time such that when the character finally exits the service, it is now, say, 1107. Then determine when and where each of those missions had to have taken place, and why. If there was a battle mission and the ship the character was deployed upon was a Tin can (DD), then what was the action? If someone gets an MCUF - what precisely was that action that was so meritous? Imagine a player being stuck for ideas on why he received that medal, when as GM you might say "Well, since you can't come up with anything, perhaps you got that medal mistakenly - and it should have gone to the guy who died next to you."

Hal... I had sorta been pushing for something like this with the High Guard Tournaments. The 10 BCr game, for instance, represents the final exam for a Naval Officer in some sort of special command/tactics school. The winner(s) of the tournament would get an automatic promotion.

I would be interested in running a campaign where the players all have characters like this... and the actual scenarios and missions placed on the campaign map... with results feeding back into the char-gen procedures... with char-gen results feeding into the campaign scenarios.

(Just trying to think of a way to maximize the enjoyment that's to be had with every single thing in Book 5- but make it all fit together.)